SOLUTION: A boat is traveling in a triangular manner. The boat traveled 213 miles from point a to point b.It then took a 23 degree turn going from point b to point c and traveled 105 miles t

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Question 304701: A boat is traveling in a triangular manner. The boat traveled 213 miles from point a to point b.It then took a 23 degree turn going from point b to point c and traveled 105 miles to get there. At what angle must it turn to get from point c to point a?
Answer by Theo(13342)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Since you are given 2 sides and the included angle, I believe you would use the Law of Cosines to solve this.

If you label your triangle ABC and you make angle B equal to 23 degrees, and you label each side opposite their respective angles a,b,c, then you will have:

Side a is opposite angle A
Side b is opposite angle B
Side c is opposite angle C

Side a is between points B and C.
Side b is between points A and C.
Side c is between points A and B.

This would make side c = 213.
This would make side a = 105.

Since you want to find the length of b and you are given angle B, then the Law of Cosines formula you would use would be:



Substituting known values in this equation gets:



Simplify this equation to get:

which becomes:

.

Take the square root of both sides of this equation to get:

b = 123.3686261

You can now use either the Law of Cosines or the Law of Sines to get the remaining angles of this triangle.

Using the Law of Cosines, angle C would be found using the following formula:



Solve this equation for cos(C) to get:



Substitute known values in this equation to get:



This would result in cos(C) = .738174175 which would result in:

angle C = 42.42388532 degrees.

Using the Law of Sines, angle C would be found using the following formula:



Substituting known values in this equation gets:



Cross multiply to get:



Divide both sides of this equation by 123.3686261 to get:

which becomes:

sin(C) = .674610174 which results in:

angle C = 42.42388532 degrees.

You got the same answer for angle C either way which is a good sign that you did all your calculations correctly.

Using the Law of Cosines, you got angle C = 42.42388532 degrees.

Using the Law of Sines, you got angle C = 42.42388532 degrees.

Since all 3 angles of the triangle must total up to 180 degrees, the remaining angle A is equal to:

180 - 23 - 42.42388532 = 114.5761147 degrees.

Your 3 sides are:

a = 105
b = 123.3686261
c = 213

Your 3 angles are:

A = 114.5761147 degrees
B = 23 degrees
C = 42.42388532 degrees

A picture of your triangle is shown below:

***** picture not found *****








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